


Imagine Other Worlds

by leiascully



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe, Headcanon, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2020-04-12 13:40:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 6,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19133161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: A collection of headcanon fics (from the "give me an AU and I'll give you five headcanons" game).





	1. The Merchant's Son and the Captain's Daughter

**Author's Note:**

> Historical AU (any period that you like!) Mulder is from a wealthy family and his parents want him to marry someone from a similar background. But he’s in love with Scully, someone his family doesn’t think is ‘good enough’ for him or the family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Historical AU (any period that you like!) Mulder is from a wealthy family and his parents want him to marry someone from a similar background. But he’s in love with Scully, someone his family doesn’t think is ‘good enough’ for him or the family

1\. “It’s one thing to own the boats, son,” his father says as they walk up and down the pier, “but you should own what’s on them too.” William Mulder nods.

2\. The admiral, so to speak, of their little fleet is Captain Scully. William’s father believes in keeping his employees happy, so Captain Scully and his wife and his four children and a number of others are invited to a Christmas party. That’s the first time William sees Dana, a vision in her green dress, her red hair shining.

3\. She’s studying with a local doctor to be a nurse. “And what do you do?” she asks, and it sounds like a challenge. “I…help run the business,” he says, although he’s just realizing he doesn’t do any of the ordering, doesn’t keep the books, doesn’t know exactly what they sell.

4\. He loves that she always asks more of him. He asks her father’s permission to see her. “If she’ll allow it,” Captain Scully says. “I’m sure you’ve got the best of intentions, Master Mulder.” “I do, sir,” William says, squaring his shoulders. 

5\. His parents disapprove. His mother had a society belle all picked out for him, it seems, and he’s flummoxed her plans. “All that money,” his father groans. But William stands firm. He’ll marry Dana or no one. He understands the life of a confirmed bachelor. He wouldn’t be without companionship. Eventually they surrender. He marries Dana on a crisp October evening. She wears a crown of ivy.


	2. Elementary, My Dear Scully

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> MSR elementary school au

1\. He doesn’t really notice when Melissa Scully joins his class. He’s at the age where he’s starting to notice girls and she’s not really girl-shaped yet, just that same kind of base model that all kids are. But she’s really smart. She’s a year or so younger than he is, but apparently the Scullys just moved here from Japan. “I guess the base school was more advanced,” Melissa - Missy - says. She has dreamy eyes and long red hair. Fox starts paying attention to her.

2\. She’s got an older brother who’s already in junior high and two younger siblings. Dana’s in the same second-grade class as his sister. Charlie’s in kindergarten. Missy talks about all of them with an open-hearted affection that Fox finds kind of embarrassing, somehow, but he’s envious too. He loves Sam, but his family isn’t like Missy’s. 

3\. Dana is the kind of kid his father would call a spitfire. When one of the other sixth-graders starts picking on Melissa, she marches up to him on the playground and kicks him in the shins. Fox has to intervene, pushing his newly-gangly body between the bully and the tiny girl with her hands on her hips and a scowl on her face. “Cool it,” Fox tells him. “She’s just a kid. And leave Melissa alone or I’ll hold you so she can kick you.”

4\. Dana has kind of a crush on him from then on. He can tell by the way she follows him around when he invites Melissa and her siblings to come hang out with him and Sam at the baseball field that summer. It’s not that kind of crush. Just kid stuff. Still, he likes to show off for her. Sometimes he carries her around piggyback, or he and Melissa swap braiding duties and he scrapes Dana’s hair away from her face into a loose French braid while Melissa braids Sam’s hair into an intricate crown and sticks flowers in it. Of course she does.

5\. The Scullys move away at the end of eighth grade. Their dad is a Navy captain and where he goes, they go. They all seem pretty used to it. Their mom lets them spend long evenings at the baseball field, coming to collect them only when it’s almost entirely dark. They all catch fireflies. Missy is gentle with them and lets them crawl up her arms. Bill mashes them and tries to smear the glowy goo on Dana. Charlie and Dana and Samantha put theirs into a jar and watch them, faces close to the glass. Fox was thinking about asking Melissa to the ninth grade dance. He still isn’t quite sure what she thinks of him. He thinks she likes him, but maybe not like that. Dana’s still got big eyes when she looks at him. She’s going to grow up to be a tough cookie, that’s for sure. He misses them a lot when they’re gone. Sam cries. He tells her it’s going to be okay, that they’ll see the Scullys again someday.


	3. Spring Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mulder and Scully reconnect after hs (continuation of the elementary one? Pretty please?)

1\. The next time she sees him, she’s in college. She’s in NYC for spring break with some friends and there he is. “Fox Mulder?” she says in astonishment. He turns and grins at her, as easy as butter melting on corn on the cob in the summer. “Hey,” he says. “Dana.”

2\. They go out for a coffee (she abandons her friends, who shoot her furtive glances and shoo her away), which turns into lunch, which turns into dinner. He asks about Missy and Charlie. She tells him they’re all doing well. “I’m here for grad school,” he says. “I’m here for a good time,” she teases. “I can show you that,” he tells her and she tries not to blush. 

3\. “You had the biggest crush on me when you were a kid,” he says as they walk through Times Square (because she had to, didn’t she?). She presses her hands to her face. “Did I?” she asks. He laughs. “Okay, I did,” she admits. “It was cute,” he says. “You had a crush on Melissa,” she accuses. He smiles and shrugs. “Kind of.” “I should call her,” Dana says, and does. “Missy? You’ll never guess who I’m standing here with. Okay, psychics aren’t real, but yes, Fox Mulder.” She passes the phone over and watches him talk to her sister and she’s barely even jealous. 

4\. They spend most of the week together. He shepherds her and her friends around to all the best tourist traps, and then her friends make mysterious excuses and leave them alone together. They spend their evenings visiting his favorite places, established over the first three of the five years he’ll be spending at Columbia getting his doctorate in behavioral psychology. “You remember when you kicked that kid?” he asks. “I knew you were going to be a force to be reckoned with.” “You still think that now?” she asks. He gives her a sideways smile. “Even more, now,” he says. “I think maybe I have a crush on a different Scully sister.” “Huh,” she says. “That’s weird. I think I have a crush on your sister.” He laughs. They call Samantha, who is so excited that she screams. 

5\. She kisses him before she gets on the train. It’s sweet and perfect. He looks astonished and gratified and ten kinds of sexy. Before she steps away, he wraps his arms around her and kisses her deeply. “Call me when you get home,” he says, his voice a promise. “I will,” she says, and kisses him once more for luck, and gets on the train to the accompaniment of her squealing friends.


	4. ET Came Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mulder brings home a stray cat that scares off Dagoo.

1\. The cat is grey. Her name is ET. She has one eye and a bad attitude. Mulder found her by the side of the road, and when he stopped to see if she was hurt, she jumped into the car. The vet says she’s perfectly healthy and not chipped. Daggoo is not pleased.

2\. Scully is not pleased that the dog she stole with her own two hands is not pleased. She tries to exile ET to the outside. ET doesn’t give a fuck. It’s possible she can open windows or phase through walls. She loves to sleep on Scully’s pillow. Sometimes she farts on it. 

3\. Daggoo creeps around the house, completely at the mercy of ET. He will leap off Scully’s lap if ET enters a room. ET then claims the empty lap as her throne, settling in loafwise with her paws tucked delicately under her. ET has never actually hurt Daggoo, but she swats and hisses at her whim. Mulder is devoted to her. He carries her around like a baby or perched on his shoulder. He will hear nothing against ET. ET still likes to sleep on Scully’s pillow, or even better, Scully’s chest. 

4\. This all continues until Daggoo gets doggy dandruff and has to be rubbed with fish oil and get it in his food. Scully comes across them one day, ET pinning Daggoo, licking his head, and purring. Daggoo looks terrified, but he won’t move.

5\. After that, they are best friends and sleep curled up together. Scully rubs Daggoo with fish oil every once in a while just in case.


	5. A Casualty, Not A Victim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Irresistible.......Mulder and the Minneapolis field office task force don't make it in time. 
> 
> WARNING: Major character death, grim as all hell.

1\. He can tell that she fought. He isn’t an expert on defensive wounds, but he can tell that she fought for every second of her life. He can tell that she clawed and kicked and did everything she was supposed to do. It wasn’t enough to stop Pfaster from gouging at her with the knife. She’s naked, tumbled into the bathtub, her hands tied behind her back, and Mulder always wanted to see her naked, but not like this. But somehow, whatever last blow she got in made Pfaster slip. He cracked his head on the tiled wall and fell on his knife. “You got him,” he whispers to her. He wants to pick up her small body and cradle her in his arms, to kiss her forehead and cry into her hair and clasp her cold fingers, all ten of them, in his. “You got him.” 

2\. “I think you should have her cremated,” Mulder tells Maggie. “The case we were on…the man who did this…she wouldn’t ever want anyone to have the option of altering her body. She was horrified.” Maggie nods. “Thank you, Fox.” They look at each other, both of them haggard. Every second that she’s gone hurts. It’s unbearable. He doesn’t have to tell Maggie that he wishes he’d died in Scully’s place. He doesn’t have to tell her how much he regrets not getting there in time, how many times he’s screamed at a deity he never really believed in. She knows. 

3\. He dreams about her so often that he wakes up one night and says out loud, “Scully, are you haunting me?” He wishes he could take the breeze that whistled past the window as a sign. Whether she’s a spirit or not, she follows him, the voice behind his thoughts. She’s his conscience. 

4\. He goes to visit her urn at least once a week. He thought he wouldn’t, after a while, but week after week, he finds himself turning into the cemetery. He brings her flowers. He lights a candle with a surreptitious lighter. “Thank you,” he says to her, “for sticking around. I’m glad you realized I still needed help.” Sometimes he and Melissa go together. Melissa lights incense. “Baby sister,” she says, “I miss you, and so does he, but we’re living in your honor.”

5\. “Sometimes I feel like she’s still with us,” Maggie says at Christmas. “I know what you mean,” he tells her. She smiles.


	6. Harper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teen Mom Scully (With some soft, kind, caring Mulder; He doesn't have to be the dad but he still has to care about Scully)

1\. She’s twenty-eight when he meets her. It takes him a few months to figure out that she’s got a twelve-year-old. Math was never really his strongest subject. 

2\. He knew pretty quickly that she had a kid. He isn’t sure why he didn’t wonder why the kid seemed so articulate on the phone. Did he think Scully had some kind of live-in nanny? They don’t really make that kind of money. Maybe he thought her mom took care of it. For a person who spends all of this time overthinking things and chasing vague hints to inevitable conclusions, he really didn’t consider this one.

3\. She doesn’t really want him to meet the kid, apparently. But they run in to each other completely by accident one day at the beach. Scully’s in a bikini (he files that away to ponder later, because it’s absolutely too astounding to consider) and the kid is building a sand castle. The kid is cute. Hasn’t hit his growth spurt yet. He’s got Scully stamped all over him: red curls, pale skin, that unmistakable nose. 

“Hey,” Mulder says. 

“What are you doing here?” Scully asks him. He shrugs. 

“Felt like a beach weekend. I see you had the same thought.” 

“Mom, who’s that?” the kid asks. 

Scully sighs. “Harper, this is my work partner, Fox Mulder.” 

The kid eyes Mulder up and down with that patented Scully X-Ray vision. “I thought you said that guy was a jerk.” 

Scully glares at him. “I didn’t say he was a jerk.” 

“Nah,” Mulder says cheerfully, “it’s cool. I’m kind of a jerk.” He sticks out his hand for Harper to shake. “Nice to meet you.”

4\. Scully starts to let him see Harper after that. They all go out for burgers when they finish a case, sometimes, and once or twice, she asks him to watch Harper when she has to go to a conference and her family’s not available. 

“What’s the story?” Mulder asks one night after Harper has gone to be and they’re drinking beer on her couch. 

“The tenth grade love of my life,” she says. “And although I would absolutely not trade him for anything ever in this world…we need better sex ed in American schools.” 

“And here I thought you were Catholic,” he teased. “’Don’t’ isn’t sex ed enough?” She elbows him. 

5\. “He’s a great kid,” Mulder tells her. 

“My kid?” she asks. She grins. “Yeah. He really is.” 

“Is he gonna be upset when he figures out we’re dating?” Mulder asks. 

Scully shakes her head. “He’s the one who told me I had to ask you out or he was going to lock himself in his room and go on a hunger strike.”


	7. Masses of Cells

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scully's cancer returns.

1\. She can feel it. She knows there’s no medical reason she should be able to. But she knows, somehow. When she goes to see her doctor and she touches Scully’s shoulder with that expression, it isn’t difficult to gather herself. She’s been through this before. 

2\. Mulder is furious with the Smoking Man. Spender. His father. Scully can’t sort it all out in her head anymore. The lines are clearly drawn, but she’s so used to the shadows and the sobriquets. She wonders if she has a Syndicate name. The Pain in the Ass, probably, if Mulder hadn’t already claimed that one. At least when they were trying to topple the Syndicate, they had a clear goal. Now it’s a shifting morass of rebellious aliens versus normal double-crossing human-hybridizing, earth-colonizing aliens, plus there’s the black oil, plus there’s the abductions.

3\. Plus she’s pregnant, so there’s that.

4\. She refuses treatment. She’ll have surgery, maybe, if surgery is a possibility this time, but no chemo. No radiation. Nothing that will hurt the baby. She wishes she’d waited to tell Mulder. She almost died once before. Is there such a thing as coitus interruptus for mortality? Anyway, she might be immortal. As long as it isn’t like the immortality of Tolkien’s elves, who go blithely on living as long as nobody kills them. Someone is trying to kill her. This isn’t an ordinary, natural-if-horrifying mutation of her cells. They have done this to her, again. The doctor argues with her. Scully won’t have it.

5\. They don’t go back to Oregon. She’s glad she saw Billy getting on with his life. She’s glad she met the baby. But the X-Files are being shut down, probably, and she didn’t want to make yet another appearance in the annals of the odd anyway. “You’re going to have to take care of this baby if I don’t make it,” she tells Mulder. He nods, speechless, and pulls her close. Over his shoulder and through the window, she can see Venus. She wishes on a star. It’s all she’s got.


	8. Old Flames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mulder and Scully thought the other had a new romantic partner (they both didn't, but the other thought so).

1\. He sounds expectant when he calls her, like she’s going to hang up on him. She thinks about it. She could invent someone talking to her from the other room, or better yet, the bedroom. She pauses just long enough to trip his paranoia. She has to entertain herself somehow when it comes to this miserable situation.

2\. When she calls, he sounds rushed. “Do you have somebody over, Mulder?” she asks. 

“No,” he says, too quickly. “Of course not.” 

3\. She never asks him what he’s doing after work or on the weekend. She doesn’t want to know. She imagines there’s a limber, vindictive brunette involved. That’s always been his type.

4\. “So what’s he like?” Mulder asks. 

“Who?” Scully says, caught off guard as she’s writing her report. 

“Your partner,” Mulder tells her. Scully stares at him. 

“As inexplicable as ever,” she says, rolling her eyes. 

“That’s not what I meant,” Mulder says. “Your paramour. Your boyfriend.” 

She sighs. “What I do in my free time is none of your business anymore, Mulder.”

5\. They have to take a case that involves an out of town weekend trip. She stares at him as they leave Skinner’s office. 

“What?” he says. 

“Aren’t you going to call your girlfriend?” she asks. “Since we’re going to be gone all weekend.” 

He frowns. “I don’t have a girlfriend. Aren’t you going to call your boyfriend?” 

She looks away. “I don’t have a boyfriend.” 

Mulder nods slowly. “Looks like we’re loners together again,” he says. 

“Looks like it,” she agrees, and lets her hip bump his in the elevator.


	9. Personal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scully resigns after the "making it personal" conversation

1\. Enough. She leaves the Lone Gunmen office, listening to the locks click behind her, and leans against the door for just a moment. Enough. She drives home and types out her resignation letter. 

2\. Skinner shows up at her door, trying to reason with her. “Whatever you’re experiencing right now, it’s real, but it’s temporary,” he says in that voice that sounds like he’s trying not to let his teeth unclench. She doesn’t want to live that life anymore. Getting rid of her headaches starts with divesting herself of the biggest one. 

“It’s over, sir,” she says, and shows him out.

3\. She writes in her journal every day for months. She doesn’t want it to be letters to Mulder - that reminds her too much of the journals she kept in the hospital while cancer crept into the space between her eyes - but it ends up that way anyway. She excoriates him for the way he dropped her when Diana showed up. She details every single thing she misses about him and every single thing she doesn’t. She fills a journal every two weeks and files them away on the shelf, the dates on the spines.

4\. He calls one night while she’s in the bath. She picks up but doesn’t say anything. “Scully,” he says, sounding miserable, and she just listens to him breathe. It takes him ten minutes to hang up. She sinks deeper into the water and closes her eyes.

5\. “You were right,” he says. He shows up at her apartment, which is somehow better than coming to her work. She can shut him out of her personal space, but her work at the morgue feels different. “It’s personal,” he tells her. “It’s always been personal and I was wrong to believe her and not you and I knew it and I took it out on you because I wanted her to be the person I used to believe she was.” 

Scully crosses her arms. “And?” 

“I can’t do this without you,” he says. “I can’t do anything without you. I came to confess, Scully. Every part of my heart and soul belongs to you and if there’s any penance I can do, tell me.” He came empty-handed, but when she lets him in, he retrieves roses from his car, and chocolates, and champagne, and a cashmere blanket she can’t wait to feel against her skin. 

“I didn’t want to pressure you,” he says, and she busies herself undoing his shirt buttons as fast as possible.


	10. An Unremarkable Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Instead of MSIV, William comes back and Scully has baby #2 during IWTB

1\. He wasn’t living very far away at all. She sees him at the grocery story, dragging a gallon of milk out of the cooler. She drops a carton of eggs. 

“William?” she says in a quavery voice. The kid turns to her. 

“My name’s Jackson,” he says, “but lady, this is going to sound weird. I think I know you.”

2\. She and Mulder don’t just get him back. That’s not how adoption works. But his parents (his adoptive parents, her mind whispers) encourage him to spend time with them. They set up a room for him in the farmhouse. He helps them out in the garden sometimes, because they don’t have any video games. Mulder takes him fishing. 

3\. “Hey, this is going to sound weird,” Jackson says, shuffling his feet, “but are you, like, uh. Pregnant?” She’s shocked. She buys a test the next day and stares at it. She is, uh, pregnant.

4\. Jackson is surprisingly level-headed about the baby. He offers them a list of acceptable names. “You had a sister,” Scully tells him. “She died years ago.” 

“That sucks,” Jackson says. “Now I’m going to have another sister, though, so that’s cool.” She doesn’t know how he knows. She can sense Mulder yearning to ask. 

He’s right, of course. 

5\. It’s probably easier not having to balance the needs of a newborn and a teenager all the time. Still, Scully relishes the moments he comes by to spend the day with them and baby Ava. Somehow, when the four of them are together, her life feels complete despite the absent friends she still sets a place for at the table.


	11. Fox Run's Ghost Whisperer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scully is a jockey and Mulder owns horses.

1\. She’s fearless. That’s the first thing he notices. The red hair is the second. She matches her horse, a chestnut the color of flame.

2\. She notices him loitering by the winner’s circle. He owns Fox Run Stables, she thinks. She’s seen his black and green silks in the winner’s circle before, but never in a race she’s run.

3\. “What can I offer you to ride for me?” he asks. 

“The right horse,” she tells him with a smile, and walks off into the crowd at the party. The dress she’s wearing leaves her sculpted back bare. He admires the view.

4\. She’s almost too big to be a jockey, really, but she’s lithe and lean and she’s got a natural seat and a good hand. It wasn’t easy breaking into the boys’ club, but they respect her now. She makes a good living and she gets to choose her work. That isn’t nothing. She doesn’t want to be beholden to anyone.

5\. She falls in love with the horse first. It’s a grey filly, nearly white, with dapples so subtle she doesn’t notice them at first. Her full name is Ghost Whisperer, out of Bump In The Night by Psychic Hotline. But everyone calls her Spook for her nervous disposition. No one else will ride her, Mulder tells her. No one else has been willing to take on training her, either, so he's stepped into the role despite his family's dubiousness. He likes Spook. She shies too much, but the world isn't always an easy thing to face, and he feels for her. He'd have taken her on as a riding horse, but the few times he swung up on her, he could feel how much she wanted to run. He holds her as Dana approaches. "Spook, huh?" she says. "You don't look so spooky to me." She strokes the filly's nose. Spook whuffs through her nostrils, flicking her ears at Dana. Dana mounts, leaving her stirrups long, and strokes Spook’s neck. The filly sidles sideways, champing at the bit, and then calms. Dana nudges her into a walk, then a trot, a canter, and a gallop. They’re flying together around the practice track, united in their purpose like some mythical creature. 

“She’s the one,” Dana tells him. It’s inevitable that they fall in love, after all those long hours in the truck, all those late nights in the hotels strategizing, all those afternoons at the track shrugging off everyone telling them their dream will never come true. It’s inevitable that he sweeps her off Spook’s back as they drape the blanket of white carnations over her in the winner’s circle at the Belmont, the crowd going wild over the first filly to win the Triple Crown, and in front of God and everyone, he kisses her.


	12. One More Breath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One Breath: Mulder reaches Scully in time when she was taken.

1\. He fucking punches Duane Barry, the force and weight of his whole body behind it, flinging himself at Barry fist-first. He doesn’t even remember he has a gun. It’s too physical a need to let his weapon do the work. He splits the skin on his hand and has a bruise for a week, but it’s worth it. Barry goes over by a tree. Mulder pins him and cuffs him before he does anything else. If he pushes Barry’s face into the dirt, no one ever calls him on it. 

2\. He unties Scully as gently as he can, trying not to bleed on her, and pulls her into his arms. He can’t stop holding her close, kissing the top of her head, and she locks her arms around him. She’s shaking. She glances at Barry with loathing. “You found me,” she says. “I found you,” he says, “and I’ll never let this happen again.”

3\. Her apartment is still full of glass and crime scene tape. He takes her to her mother’s. When he walks her to the door, she turns to him and searches his face with inscrutable blue eyes. 

“Scully?” he says, and she stands one step up from him and kisses him. She’s still almost on her tiptoes. He pulls her close with one arm, smooths her hair with the other hand, and lets himself melt into her. She’s okay. She’s okay. They’re all right. 

“I can’t imagine what would have happened without you, Mulder,” she says. 

“I don’t want to imagine it,” he tells her. “Nothing in my life has ever scared me that much except the night Sam disappeared. I can’t do this without you.” 

Her mother invites him in for dinner. Scully kisses him goodnight when he leaves.

4\. The trial is quick and easy. He knows Scully hates that they see her as small and helpless, but at the same time, when the jury looks at her, and when they see the photographs of the scrapes and bruises Barry left her with, they get angry. Mulder reaches up to hold Scully’s hand during the verdict. She reaches back without looking and her fingers catch his. Barry gets put away for the rest of his life and beyond. They walk out of the court room still holding hands. 

5\. “I’ve been re-evaluating some decisions I’ve made,” she says shyly. “And Mulder, I want to have a baby. With you. Before the next catastrophe upends our lives.” 

“Yes,” he says. “Yes.”


	13. My Brother's Keeper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> William: somebody gets in touch with Mulder before William’s adoption and he stops that business in the nick of time

1\. It’s Spender. Despite the face that’s reminiscent of the Great Mutato, Mulder knows it, somehow. “She’s panicking,” Spender explains, and there’s a little accusation in it and a little apology. “You need to go home.” 

Mulder doesn’t bother to protest. He clasps his brother - his brother - by the shoulder. 

“I can get you there,” Spender promises, and despite their history, Mulder believes him.

2\. It’s a desperate trip. They swap off driving - Spender’s reluctant to fly, and Mulder understands why. They drive Spender’s SUV. Mulder even manages to sleep for a while. When he’s awake, he snacks on sunflower seeds. 

“Want a few?” he asks, and Spender holds out his hand. Mulder shakes them into his palm. 

3\. Scully’s face, when she opens the door, is as glorious a sight as the Snowcat coming over the horizon as they huddled in the snow, arms around each other. Mulder holds her and lets her tears soak the front of his shirt. Spender, behind them, clears his throat. 

“Thank you, Jeffrey,” she says. Mulder reluctantly lets Scully step away and he pulls his brother close. 

“Thank you,” he says, and Spender’s shoulders shake. 

4\. Spender holds the baby while Mulder and Scully pack. “We’ve got to get out of here for a while,” he says. When they’re done, Scully lets him administer the shot as she cradles William against her shoulder. Mulder stands behind them, his hands on her waist. 

5\. The four of them go up to one of Spender’s properties. It’s not so far from one of Mulder’s parents’ places, but Spender’s clearly had the place redone. Spender sets his bag down as Mulder soothes William. 

“We’ll start out here,” Spender says. “It should be safe for a while. I don’t think they’ll look very hard at my father’s involvement. His work hasn’t been significant in a long time.” 

They can’t entirely figure out how to thank him, but it’s nice, somehow, to make dinner together, the three of the moving around the kitchen in a curious choreography as William burbles in his high chair.


	14. Je Souhaite Une Grande Vie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU where Scully unrolled the genie instead of Mulder

1\. She also wishes for world peace, or that there isn’t any crime or war or what have you. When everyone reappears, there’s a half second where she wonders if her sister and her father and Emily came back too.

2\. She doesn’t get mad at Jenn. It seems like a fairly elegant solution, honestly. People are the problem. At the same time, she can’t endorse the method.

3\. What she wants to wish for is another moment with her loved ones, but she knows she had that moment with her father, in a way, and that Missy would want her to keep on living and moving forward, and she’ll never know what Emily wants.

4\. After that, she’s wistful for a moment about the wish that cannot be wished: that she and Mulder will always be happy. But she knows how this all works. She knows that won’t necessarily mean they’re happy together. And she just can’t give him up, when it comes to it, even if it stands in the way of perfect joy.

5\. She looks at Jenn, smiles, and takes her hand. Jenn smiles back. It’s one of those moments where we see Scully really connect with a woman. It’s nice and heartwarming and a little gay. She recommends a coffee shop and sets Jenn free.


	15. Roulette

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU: When they leave the hospital at the end of Pusher, Mulder falls apart and Scully puts him back together again.

1\. She drives him back to her house, even though he says he wants to go back to his apartment. He insists he’s fine. He collapses as soon as she closes the door and sobs into her shoulder.

2\. She spends two hours on the couch holding him as he shivers and apologizes. Eventually, he seems to recover enough for her to get up and she makes him drink a cup of mint tea.

3\. She runs a bath for him, so full of bubbles that neither of them is even worried about it when she comes in and sits next to the tub on one of her kitchen chairs and holds his hand. 

4\. After that, she puts him to sleep in her bed. She’s just walking away after turning out the light when he whispers her name. She comes and lies on top of the covers and holds him. She’s the big spoon. He keeps telling her he’s sorry. She keeps telling him it’s not his fault. She knows he would never shoot her. She knows he couldn’t live with himself. She tells him they’re both alive and no one is to blame. She understands he was trying to keep her out of danger. He’s not responsible for the things that Pusher did and said.

5\. They order in a big pile of Chinese food because it’s easy. They watch some kind of M.A.S.H. marathon on a channel she didn’t know she had. Their problems seem smaller.


	16. You Were Always On My Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where Mulder told Scully he heard her thoughts about him in Amor Fati.

1\. “I could hear you,” he tells her when she comes to his apartment. 

“Of course you could,” she says absently. 

“I could hear your thoughts,” he says. “When my mind was going a mile a minute.” 

She studies him. “Are you still on the painkillers, Mulder?”

2\. “I could hear you,” he tells her, when they’re back in the office. “While I was in the hospital. I think it was a side effect of my enhanced brain activity.” 

“Did you hear that I had incredible jet lag?” she says without looking up from her paperwork. He sighs.

3\. “I could hear you,” he tells her, and finally she’s really looking at him, really listening. 

“You could hear my thoughts?” she asks. 

He nods carefully. 

“And what did you hear?” she asks. 

“You…missed me,” he says.

4\. “Before your surgery,” she says on her way out of the office, and hesitates. 

“When I could hear you,” he prompts. 

She nods slowly. “Was it just that I missed you?” 

“No,” he says. “It was more than that.” But she doesn’t ask anything else, just nods again and shuts the door behind her.

5\. “You love me,” he says. “Or you did.” 

“I love you,” she repeats. 

“Or you did,” he repeats. “Maybe it was just in the moment. A consequence of stress and alien artifact-induced hyperactive brain activity.” 

“Mulder, I’ve loved you for what feels like all my life,” she says. “It took telepathy for you to realize?”


	17. Matchmaker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Melissa lives to smack Mulder and Scully’s dumb heads together

1\. “So how long have you two been madly in love?” Melissa asks as soon as Scully gets out of the hospital. Mulder spits out his coffee. Scully buries her bright pink face in her hands.

2\. “You should ask him out,” Melissa says as she and Dana sit on the couch, their feet touching, bowls of ice cream propped on their knees. “He’s cute.” 

“He’s not cute,” Dana protests, but Missy just looks at her. 

“Okay, fine, he’s cute,” Dana mutters. 

“He’s cute?” Missy prods. 

“He’s…very handsome,” Dana admits.

3\. “She likes you,” Melissa says as Mulder waits by the door. 

“I hope so,” Mulder says, deliberately obtuse, “She’s my partner.” 

“She _likes_ you,” Melissa insists, “and you should do something about it.” Scully comes out of the bathroom still smoothing her hair and they both look sideways at her. 

“What?” she says defensively. “Nothing,” they say in unison.

4\. Missy insists that they invite Mulder to Thanksgiving. Bill blusters at him, all protective big brother, but Missy rolls her eyes and sweetly puts him in his place. Maggie slips him an extra piece of pie. Scully surreptitiously doses their after-dinner coffee and Missy’s with bourbon and they get gently tipsy in the corner until Maggie brings out the Christmas ornaments. Scully smiles at Mulder from the other end of the string of lights, her eyes glowing. 

5\. He’s already decorated the tree, so of course he has to come to Christmas. It isn’t as if his family celebrates it - his mother is Jewish and his father barely communicates. The Scully family does Christmas dinner the night before and then Mass. He doesn’t know what’s happening, but he goes with them and kneels next to Scully. Her shoulder brushes his. They have coffee and cookies after and then stash the presents under the tree. Mulder spends the night on the couch, listening all the while for Scully to sneak down the stairs. She does, eventually, and they sit together watching the embers of the fire die out. “I’m glad you’re here,” she says before she heads back to bed in the room she’s sharing with Melissa. She brushes her fingers through his hair as she leaves. In the morning, there are presents for him under the tree, and Grinch-like, his heart grows three sizes. Outside, it starts to snow.


	18. Midwives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What if Melissa had been present at William's birth?

1\. Melissa tied her hair back with a kerchief. Scully took one look at her tucking the ruddy waves of her hair under the cloth and burst into tears.

“Dana, what’s wrong?” Melissa asked, sinking to her knees next to the couch.

“You just looked like Mom for a second,” Scully said, wiping her eyes with the hem of her sweater. “I wish she was here.”

“I wish she was too,” Melissa said. She pulled herself up to sit next to Scully and put her arm around her. Scully leaned into her, inhaling the scent of patchouli and laundry detergent that had been Melissa’s signature since they were still sharing a room in base housing. 

“I’m glad you’re here,” Scullly said quietly.

Melissa squeezed her closer. “Me too.”

2\. Melissa and Reyes boiled a lot of water in the bigger pots, the lids clattering with the steam. There was a separate smaller pot. It bubbled furiously. 

“What’s this one for?” Reyes asked.

Melissa rooted around in her bag and pulled out a sachet of lavender. She cast the buds into the pot and followed them with the contents of an old jar of mint from the kitchen cabinets. “Birth is a beautiful process, but it isn’t a very fragrant one. Lavender and mint smell nice and they’re soothing.” She shrugged and smiled. “Nothing particularly mystical this time.”

“I like mystical,” Reyes assured her. “But I also like practical.” 

Melissa leaned against the doorframe. “You know, Dana, she’s much more interesting than the rest of the FBI. You should keep her around.”

“I’m doing my best,” Scully said, and then gasped as another contraction hit. 

“I’m here now, aren’t I?” Reyes said, and smiled back at Melissa. “That’s got to mean something.”

3\. Melissa made mint tea, too, and let it cool before Scully sipped at it. It was fresh and cool, which was the opposite of the way she felt. Reyes sponged her brow gently. 

“Thank you both,” Scully said. “For being here. For everything.”

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,” Melissa said. 

“I’m honored that you asked me to come with you,” Reyes said. “That you trusted me.”

“There’s no one I’d rather have with me for this,” Scully said. 

“Don’t start crying again,” Melissa teased gently. “You’ll need all that water when you start sweating.”

“Forever the bossy older sister,” Scully said, pretending to sulk.

“It’s not my fault I’ll always know more than you, Dana,” Melissa said. “That’s the joy and privilege of being the older sister.”

“I like seeing this side of you,” Reyes said. “Often we lack the companionship of women, the makeup of the FBI being what it is. I feel lucky to have met you both.”

“I’m glad to know my little sister has a friend as wise as you are,” Melissa said, and Reyes chuckled. 

“I don’t know if I’m wise, but I’m certainly trying.”

Another contraction gripped Scully and she grunted. Reyes looked at her watch. Melissa held Scully’s hand. They breathed through the pain together, one agonizing moment at a time.

4\. Not only were there whale songs, there were whale songs in harmony. The two of them hummed as Scully gritted her teeth and breathed like she learned in class. They held her hands and kept singing even though Scully knew she was squeezing too hard. Even when she screamed, they held on.

5\. Melissa cleaned Scully up while Reyes wiped off the baby, after Scully had held him and reassured herself that all was as well as it could be. The placenta had been dealt with, Missy assured Scully, although Scully suspected that meant Melissa had bagged it up and put it in the freezer. The umbilical cord had been cut and tied. 

“You did so well,” Melissa said. “And you’re lucky - you don’t need stitches.”

“Where did you learn all of this?” Scully asked. Her voice sounded raspy. There had been a lot of screaming at the end.

“I studied to be a midwife for a while,” Melissa said. “It turns out that kind of education sticks with you.”

“I wish we’d talked more,” Scully said. “The last few years, I mean. I’ve missed you.”

“I’m here now,” Melissa said. “I’m sorry I didn’t come back sooner. I know it was lonely for you, while he was gone. But I’m very excited to be Aunt Missy.to a nephew who won’t be told that any gift I give him is hippie nonsense.”

“I promise I won’t tell him that even if it is,” Scully said. Reyes brought William back and Scully somehow managed to get him nursing. Here was her miracle, her perfect son and her amazing sister and the kindest person she’d met at the Bureau. She didn’t even think she would have been happier if Mulder had been there - he would have suffered, seeing her in pain, in a way that would have distracted her from the work of having their child. Now that the deed was accomplished, she ached to see him, but it was manageable, the longing mitigated by the company she did have. She would feed her child, and then she would sleep, secure in the knowledge that they were watched over by some of the people who cared about her most in the world. It was all she could have hoped for.


End file.
